TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A senior researcher at defense company Boeing, Brian J. Tillotson, has filed patent for a device that would protect soldiers from shock waves generated by explosion.

"We were doing a much better job of stopping shrapnel," Tillotson told Live Science.

"But they were coming home with brain injuries."

The device, patented in the U.S under the number 8,981, 261, envisions topping shock waves using a veil of heated, ionized air. Such a "shield" would damp the explosions. It doesn't build an invisible wall of force, but rather makes shock waves bend around objects, just as some high-tech materials bend light and make things invisible.

According to Tillotson, armor plating plating on a military vehicle might stop the debris from a roadside bomb from injuring a soldier, but it can't shield against the shock waves generated by such explosions. The blast wave goes right through a human body and causes massive trauma.

Tillotson’s invention works by heating the air in front of the spot where the bomb goes off. In one version, it has a detector that ‘sees’ an explosion before the shock wave hits. This detector is connected to a large power source that will generate an arc of electricity like a bolt of lightning. This arc heats the particles of air to make it work as a shield by changing the speed at which shock waves travel. Therefore, bending the shock wave aroud a protected soldier.

“The process resembles the way lenses bend light,”Tillotson said.

"With a convex lens you focus the light," he said. "A concave lens spreads it out."

LIVE SCIENCE | AHMAD NURHASIM